Wedding Bells

The big day finally arrived. M and A's wedding on May 11, 2008. After many conflicting weather reports - no-one seemed to know what was going to happen! - it ended up with only a 10 or 20% chance of rain. That was the big issue in this outdoor wedding. However, we didn't count on the other (rare in these parts) demon - the wind! No rain all day but VERY STRONG WINDS - seeming gale force for Tennessee. Other than that, everything went very smoothly and well with no obvious hitches anywhere. The rest of this blog will be mostly photos - as the saying goes, one picture is worth a thousand words.....

A secret is shared - C with the two other children: I and Co.

This is 4-yr old I - son of M. Very cute - did a great job as Bible boy.

The ceremony in full swing - "Junior Bridesmaid who dropped petals" making her entrance.


M's father performed the ceremony - a qualified Presbyterian pastor. He preached an excellent homily and everything went very smoothly - he is obviously very experienced and talented in many ways (plays the piano like a pro too).

Closer-up of the dress. Gorgeous design - all the dresses were beautiful! The bride was stunning!


C and Co leaving at the end, paired up. They were both pro's!


Large group photo - the whole wedding party.

Family portrait

The Groom's mother.

Here is the gorgeous cake - made by future sister-in-law, Amy.



I was the videographer at the wedding - now must turn the mini-DV's into a DVD. At the reception we were shown a video/slideshow of the couple's lives and how they met etc - masterfully done by none other than the groom's father! There were also several speeches: bride's father, bride's sister, groom's brother and bride's grandmother - all very well done.

At the reception. The decorations included daisies and roses in pink and green decorated vases. The food was burritos and salad with pink and green lemonade, followed by wedding cake, of course!



So - the day came to an end. Everything was cleaned up while the bridal couple headed off to .......ah ha!!

Cinco de Mayo

Why we celebrate the Mexican independence day here in the States, I don't know....but anyway, several local homeschoolers were invited to celebrate the Mexicans' contributions to our country I suppose, at a local assisted living center.

The fun part is visiting with the elderly and I think they enjoy our antics too. Here, the kids, and some residents, took turns taking a swipe or two at the pinata. We also made crepe paper flowers and handed them around the tables while the residents were eating lunch, listened to their little bell choir perform Mexican music, watched a dress-up show and had a lunch of Burritos and salsa etc while watching a video of someone's visit to Spain about 16 years ago. All in all, a fun time.

Here is C with her birthday present - the weeping willow. It is doing really well - we'll have to take a yearly picture to compare growth.

Here is the Busy Bee, now promoted to Sunbeam! Joy of joys!

A pleasant pose by the cello. It must have been a happy day of practice!:-)

Our garden plot getting ploughed. I don't know if I'm ready for this yet!...

A splash of colour in front of the house. This year our azaleas more than made up for the late frost which killed the blooms last year.

Here is the neighbour's dog - whose real name is Dozer (as in bulldozer?). He used to be Hercules before we knew he belonged to someone....Very sweet and wonderful with children - lives here day and night, despite being fed by his owners. Perhaps the fact that we're here a lot makes a difference! S isn't too happy with the $100 worth of damage he did to his sleeping bag and mattress though! He does love to chew, and found these "treasures" in the barn while S was mowing. Now he closes the barn door! (Isn't that what our mothers said anyway??!)

Naughty boy!!

Warning - only the eligible may enter - others enter at their own risk!!

The big wedding is Sunday pm. Also in the forecast is a 70% chance of rain and thunderstorms...Let's pray we fit neatly into the 30% between 5 and 8pm since A and M are having an outdoor wedding. I guess that'll be the topic next week with, hopefully, some nice photos!

Best wishes to them, and to G&J for their silver wedding anniversary yesterday.

Hasta la Vista! (what that means is..."goodbye til we meet again", or "hurry and be gone and I don't want to see you again for a long time!"....:-)

Sonrise Snippets

Here is a brief graphic summary of the Sonrise pageant our local church puts on every year on the Easter weekend. Here, C is making friends with a sweet little lamb.

In this picture a young camel gets frisky - his mother was in a nearby trailer and he wasn't happy about that!

This other camel is just a friend, I guess.

"Who am I? I'll give you 3 guesses!"

We didn't do the full walk-through - a little graphic in places for young minds - but here are some snippets from here and there. By the way, we did have wonderful weather for it - almost hot!

After the outskirts of Jerusalem, we enter the city gates and pass through some shops and other businesses.

Early morning fires keep the merchants warm.

For convenience, the money changer is right on the main thoroughfare to take your money and maybe give you back a fair trade....

Get your temple tax here

"Beautiful, colourful fabric for sale! Just in time for the Passover! Get your new, imported fabric right here!"

In this photo, we have Aunty J, A and M, along with the children C and D.

After this area - the city of Jerusalem - the pageant continued to the last supper, the garden of Gethsemane, the trial of Jesus with Pontius Pilate and Herod etc, then carrying the cross to Golgotha where they portrayed the crucifixion, and lastly to the gym where the resurrection was dramatized. Every year I think "This is the last year I come" - but every year I give in to C's wish to see it, especially the animals and Aunty J's fabric stand!! Next year coincides with LBA alumni w/e - yay - we'll have to miss it! I just see too many flaws in portraying the spotless Son of God with a sinful, mortal human! Anyway, that's just my view. Won't go into that now.

And here is C's new 1/4 size Cello on the day we got it - still getting used to the new big size. Now it's old hat.

This week we had another cello recital. C played Boccherini's Minuet last night. Did very well. Tomorrow she plays the same piece at a local Assisted Living. Join us there at 3pm!

Happy Sabbath!

Til next week....

April Showers

bring May flowers - but here it's mostly March showers that bring April flowers....We've had a fair amount of rain so far this month. This evening we're having some lovely thundershowers - the grass will surely be extra green after this. (These aren't the original photos but can't remember what they were!)

Last week we had the pleasure of having P, K and kids visit for almost a week.

Wish it could have been longer, but were glad for the time we had. P helped put in some new front steps - a big job for the guys one Wednesday afternoon.

We had a birthday boy that week too and P's brother, A came over with his two boys for the supper celebration.

They also did a lot of visiting - after living in this area for about 15 years, they have a lot of people to see!

M (all of 10 years old),is quite the artist. Here are a few of her drawings - all freehand.

 (I'll have to find all the original pictures....haven't found them yet)

This past week we got back into the school mode...not so easy the first few days!We often have "visitors" who make nice distractions too.

In math we're working on subtraction strategies; (oh wait, this is from Sep 2007)

 in cello we're working on Scherzo by C. Webster (book 3); in piano still in the middle of Piano Adventures Book 2A; in English we're in the middle of Language 2, almost finished Spelling and Poetry 1, and some other books; violin is skipping and hopping around - all playing by ear but trying to keep good technique so we won't be kicked out of the violin group next fall. Here is C at her violin lesson. The teacher, Mrs. Swoboda, is busy tuning and A is looking on.

In Social Studies, we've just finished studying about Peru (using the Top Secret series as a guide); in Science we're going to begin some Spring activities like plaster molds of animal prints, pond water analysis and other stuff like that. Probably some other things we're doing but won't mention them now. C enjoys browsing World Book on the computer - she now has her own account and, joy of joys, a password!!

Also visited J a couple times this past week - she's in hospital with Sinus node problems - probably getting a pacemaker today or soon. She's had several 'pauses' where she blacked out (in the hospital) and had to have a portable defibrillator shock her heart back into action - scary - especially since she has a 3 month old and is so young, herself. We're praying for a quick recovery.

We have a new stray dog. He looks like a young pitbull or some other kind of terrier. (Will post a pic as soon as we take one!). Very sweet but a little timid. He has a collar on - but hangs around like this is his new home!

We've named him Hercules in the mean time. He's even sweet with the cat - acting more curious than aggressive. At the beginning of the week we had a very thin and decrepit, but sweet and friendly, beagle hanging around - now gone...

Next Wednesday is Adventurer Investiture. Will post pics and tell all about that next time as well as include some pics of the Easter Sonrise pageant they had on March 22.

Happy Sabbath, one and all!